“New Starbucks CEO plans to pull barista shifts in stores every month,” CNN announces. “Uber’s CEO moonlighted as a driver and it changed the way he operates the company,” Fortune insists. “Your DoorDash driver? He’s the company’s co-founder,” the Associated Press smirks.

Month after month or week after week, we seem to hear the same stories about bold corporate executives who’ve decided to roll up their sleeves—metaphorically or otherwise—and join their lowest-level employees as a delivery driver, barista, or retail worker. Their stated goal: to “stay connected” to and “better understand” the company, its customers, and its workers. 

While these attempts to foster and express empathy may appear noble on the surface, they’re anything but. In reality, the CEO-as-worker stunt is an entirely self-serving project, creating a pretext for worker surveillance and a distraction from labor abuses like poverty wages and union-busting, all the while seeking to convince the public that corporate executives are honest, hardworking folks, Just Like You. 

Today, we will be dissecting the past and present of Undercover Boss-style corporate maneuvers, looking at the ways in which the C-suiter-in-the-trenches routine advances the squishy concept of “empathy” in order to obscure and undermine the material needs and demands of labor. 

Our guest is Ligia Guallpa, Executive Director of the Worker's Justice Project, a community-based, workers’ rights organization in New York City.

Episode 187: Undercover Boss, Uber-Driving CEOs, and the "Empathetic Executive" Schtick

To hear the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/TrueAnonPod
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We close out our series on POW-MIAs by talking Rambo II, the National League, big-eared Ross Perot, more scams and kooks, normalization and Elizabeth Warren.

Episode 323: Dude Where’s My Dad: POW/MIAs (Part Three) [trailer]

I lived in a punk house for 10 years and there are stories i tell you whut. This is ep 1 of a possible series in the place. Bryan Sears joins me to talk about factories and scary haunted dolls.

PIECE ABOUT THE BUILDING
https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/05/the-bushwick-doll-factory.html#google_vignette

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON + DISCORD
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

We are 538 (pt 1 of ?) w/ Bryan Sears

In this public News Brief we discuss the recent escalation in violence in "the middle east" and the quickly-forming bipartisan consensus to jam the issue into a simplistic, dehumanizing War on Terror narrative

News Brief: US Media, Washington Rush Head First into 9/11 2.0

We talk about President Biden's address to the nation re: Israel/Palestine, as well as Israel's attempts to obfuscate what happened at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 313: Karmically Overextended

We discuss the phenomenon of the "Progressive Except Palestine," and also we introduce a new segment.

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON + DISCORD
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

Pep Talk

Body harvesting, Borat, The Warren Commission, and more. But first, the god damned libs.

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON + DISCORD
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

PAID PROTEST 12/1
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/paidprotestdec

Flores, She Wrote

In this News Brief, we detail how American media focusing entirely on discrete "counter attacks" and adopting cool military-speak play-by-play ignores the much bigger and important reality of forcible population transfers and overt plans to remove Palestinians from Palestine.

Media Adopts Israel's Simplistic 'Hunt for Hamas' Narrative, Providing Cover For Ethnic Cleansing

Recorded 11/22/23. Clips used in this week's ep (content warning): Annihilation Choir, State Department employee Stuart Seldowitz, and NSC spokesman John Kirby. 

Listen to Part 2 of this episode at Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 318: Cop City On A Hill

The latest news about shrimp, climate summits, Henry Kissinger, Democratic politics, and Israel/Palestine

Sign up for our Patreon for more great content: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 319: Krill Kings

In this News Brief, we detail how horrific population transfers, mass bombings, and collective punishment are spun as humanitarian gestures to protect civilians.

News Brief: 5 Ways US Media Helps Put a 'Humanitarian' Spin on Gaza Ethnic Cleansing

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Media Adopts Israel's Simplistic 'Hunt for Hamas' Narrative, Providing Cover For Ethnic Cleansing

Citations Needed Podcast